Obama hails veterans of a 'forgotten war'

Six decades after the Korean War ended with the signing of an armistice on July 27, 1953, U.S. President Barack Obama said Saturday that American veterans left behind a legacy of “a democratic South Korea,” while North Korean leaders observed the day with a mass display of military might and pomp.

Obama said that American veterans deserved a better homecoming from a war-weary nation and disputed the common characterization of the Korean War as “forgotten.”

"Here, today, we can say with confidence that war was no tie. Korea was a victory," Obama said in a speech at the Korean War Veterans Memorial on the National Mall, where dozens of U.S. and Korean war veterans assembled in the audience of an estimated 5,000, according to Reuters.

U.S. veterans had come home to neither parades nor protests because "there was, it seemed, a desire to forget, to move on" by Americans tired of battle. But they "deserved better," Obama said.

The 1950-1953 war started when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United States, fearful of the spread of communism, rallied the United Nations and other allies to halt the North Koreans and their allies, the Chinese.

An estimated 1.7 million Americans fought in the war, with more than 36,000 killed. Koreans on both sides suffered nearly 2 million deaths, according to The Washington Post. An estimated 8,000 American soliders are still missing from the police action.

Obama also said the war serves as a reminder that a country's obligation to its fallen and their families endures long after battle. Nearly 8,000 U.S. servicemen are still listed as missing in action. He pledged that the U.S. would not rest "until we give these families a full accounting of their loved ones."

A formal peace treaty was never signed, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war. Hostility remains between the two Koreas and between North Korea and the United States, which still has no formal diplomatic relations with the communist nation. The U.S. has 28,500 troops based in the south.

North Korea's official version of the Korean War attributes victory to the strategic genius of Kim Jong-Un's grandfather and the nation's founder Kim Il-Sung.

At one point during the celebrations in Pyongyang, a giant photo portrait of a youthful Kim Il-Sung was carried past the podium, according to Agence France Presse.

Support for the current leader was highlighted throughout the parade with a small fleet of helicopters trailing banners that collectively read "Protect Kim Jong-Un With Our Lives".

"All of us are old, but we are ready to sacrifice our lives again," retired colonel Kim Tae-Ho, one of many war veterans invited to watch the parade, told AFP.

Professor Kim Yong-Hyun at Dongguk University said that "through this parade, North Korea sought to flex its military muscle before the world and impress other countries with its nuclear and missile capabilities."

"At the same time, it also wanted to rally North Koreans behind the young ruler," Kim said.

In South Korea, the armistice anniversary was marked in a far more muted fashion, with leaders urging the North to give up its nuclear ambitions and embrace change and peace.

"If the North makes the right choice, we will expand exchanges and cooperation and actively open up the road for prosperity of the North and the South," South Korean President Park Geun-Hye said.